In my defense, not that I really need one, I was obviously throwing out a hypothetical involving public land.
Private property will (has) work(ed) also.
My point is, spread out over multiple posts in different threads: you can’t just throw a Judeo-Christian religious shrine in front of a courthouse. Bam! That’s the establishment of religion.
There might be a way to put such objects on public land, however.
When you confuse fact with fiction things go to hell very quickly.
There are lots of ways of putting religious objects on public land. For instance, the National Gallery of Art must have the odd reliquary or painting of the Resurrection tucked away in its building someplace. And there’s nothing stopping a Congressman from carrying his personal Bible with him wherever he goes, including right into the U.S. Capitol. The White House is a federal government building that’s also the residence of a particular family; while I’m sure there are pretty strict rules about wholesale redecorations of the place, there’s got to be some leeway for putting up pictures and such in the private residential parts of the building, whether it’s the First Toddler’s crayon drawing of Mommy and Daddy posted up on the First Refrigerator, or a picture of Jesus on the wall in the First Bedroom.
However, I guess I just don’t see the obsession with having expressions of religious belief on public (as in state-owned) land. If people want unambiguous “acknowledgements” of their faith (as opposed to displaying religious icons as artwork and so forth), why must they involve the government in it?
We agree.
I think I feel the need to combat the argument that somehow this “bans God,” even if the argument is only extended to public land. It’s still not true.
Personally, I find the amount of private religious properties in this area of the country to be more than sufficient to hold almost any number of religious monuments. They could carpet the landscape. Funny, the judge dropped his in front of the courthouse.
And all have holidays and celebrations
Ba’hai?*
Not sure about that, or how to spell it…
oh look, time for fishing with dynamite again (hardly a sport, but what the fuck…)
Buddhism… (although it can happily accomodate all sorts of demons and gods and demi-gods and the like, these are not the primary mechanism for learning spiritual truths)
Hebesphenomegacorona, if you were asking whether or not the Bahá’í religion includes holy days, the answer is that it does. According to this U.S. Bahá’í web site there are “eleven Holy Days for which we hold special programs. The Bahá’í House of Worship also holds observances for selected other occasions throughout the year”.